Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

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Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs

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The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Second Edition) Online sets out the present state of our knowledge of the Islamic World. It is a unique and invaluable reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam, and the authoritative source not only for the religion, but also for the believers and the countries in which they live. 

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Āl-i Aḥmad

(1,360 words)

Author(s): de Vries, G. J. J.
, sayyid d̲j̲alāl , Iranian prose writer and ideologist (1923-69). His œuvre may be tentatively classified as comprising literary fiction on the one hand ( ḳiṣṣa , dāstān ), and essays and reports on the other hand ( maḳāla , guzāris̲h̲ ). This classification, however, only follows the author’s own designation. Āl-i Aḥmad lacks the technical concern and sophistication of a contemporary like Ṣādiḳ Čūbak, and in terms of formal structure, this tends to blur the dividing lines, not merely between the “novel” ( ḳiṣṣa) and the “short story” ( dāstān), but also between the dāstān, often approac…

Iatromancy

(7 words)

[see firāsa , istik̲h̲āra ]

ʿIbād

(5 words)

[see naṣārā ].

Ibadan

(1,074 words)

Author(s): Cohen, A.
, town in the Western Region of Nigeria, originated during the 1820’s on the site of an Egba village as a war encampment set up by groups of wandering Yoruba soldiers from the old Oyo Empire, Ile Ife and Ijebu. Those were times of great upheavals in Yorubaland. The Oyo Empire had been rapidly disintegrating as a result of serious internal cleavages and mounting external pressure. The Fulani had been pushing southward, using Ilorin as a base, and eventually in 1837 they forced the evacuation of o…

ʿIbādāt

(1,258 words)

Author(s): Bousquet, G.-H.
(pl. of ʿibāda ), submissive obedience to a master, and therefore religious practice, corresponds, together with its synonym ṭāʿa , in the works of fiḳh , approximately to the ritual of Muslim law (we do not say “cult”, see below), as opposed to the muʿāmalāt which include more or less all the rest (but which, in the strict sense, correspond to synallagmatic contracts only). The distinctions are elusive, as so often in these matters. Ṣalāt is quite certainly an ʿibāda, but some affirm that marriage is also one (which is the more remarkable in that the Muslim marriage does …

ʿIbādat Ḵh̲āna

(359 words)

Author(s): Ali, M. Athar
, literally “House of Worship”, the name of the chamber or building where religious discussions among theologians were held under the patronage of the Mug̲h̲al Emperor Akbar. It was constructed by Akbar at Fatḥpūr Sikrī [ q.v.] the seat of his court, in 983/1575. He was then interested in finding a common interpretation of Muslim law, and invited Muslim jurists and theologians to hold discussions with a view to resolving their disputes; he was himself present at many of these. It was discovered, during the course of discussions, t…

Ibʿādiyya

(573 words)

Author(s): Baer, G.
or Abʿādiyya (pl. abāʿid ) was the term used in 19th century Egypt for land surveyed in 1813 under Muḥammad ʿAlī, but not included in the cadaster and not taxed because it was uncultivated. These lands extended over an area of 0.75 to 1.0 million feddān s (a feddān amounted, at the end of Muḥammad ʿAlī’s rule, to 4,416.5 square metres). To increase the country’s wealth he made free grants of ibʿādiyya to high officials and notables, exempting them from taxes on condition that they improved the land and prepared it for cultivation. The first re…

al-Ibāḍiyya

(15,273 words)

Author(s): Lewicki, T.
, one of the main branches of the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲īs [ q.v.], representatives of which are today found in ʿUmān, East Africa, Tripolitania (D̲j̲abal Nafūsa and Zuag̲h̲a) and southern Algeria (Wargla and Mzab). The sect takes it name from that of one of those said to have founded it, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ al-Murrī al-Tamīmī. The form usually employed is Abāḍiyya; this is true not only of North Africa ( e.g., in the D̲j̲abal Natūsa, cf. A. de C. Motylinski, Le Djebel Nefousa , Paris 1898-9, 41 and passim ), where it is attested in the 9th/15th century by the Ibāḍī writer al-Barrādī ( Kitāb Ḏj̲awāhir al-mun…

Ibāḥa

(1,424 words)

Author(s): Schacht, J.
(I) (a.), a verbal noun meaning originally “making a thing apparent or manifest”, with the implication that the beholder may take it or leave it, and then “making a thing allowable or free to him who desires it”; it has become a technical term with several connected meanings in the religious law of Islam; istibāḥa , taking a thing as allowed, free, or lawful; mubāḥ (the contrary of maḥẓūr ), “indifferent”, i.e., neither obligatory or recommended, nor forbidden or reprehensible; it is to be distinguished from its near synonym d̲j̲āʾiz , “unobjectionable, valid, permitted”; the concept ḥalāl…

Ibāḥa

(1,230 words)

Author(s): Madelung, W. | M. G. S. Hodgson
(II) “permission”, a term commonly applied to antinomian teachings (or actions), especially as asserted among certain S̲h̲īʿī and Ṣūfī groups. Antinomian trends were strong among the more radical S̲h̲īʿī circles from an early date. “Allowing the forbidden”, ibāḥat (or taḥlīl ) al-maḥārim , is a constantly recurring accusation against certain groups on the fringe of the S̲h̲īʿa; it served, among other criteria, to class them among the G̲h̲ulāt [ q.v.]. The heresiographers mention many such groups as belonging to, or splitting off from the movements tracing the imā…

Ibāḥatiya

(479 words)

Author(s): Qureshi, I.H.
, Hindu sect. The Ibāḥatiya were, by some writers on Indo-Muslim history, confused with the Ibāḥiyya or Aṣḥāb al-Ibāḥa . As the Ismāʿīlīs are included among the latter, these writers have thought that the term Ibāḥatiya applies to them. A closer examination of the evidence, however, leads to the conclusion that the references are to a Hindu Tāntric sect, which was also known as Vāma-mārgī or Vāma-čārī (“followers of the left hand path”) and formed a sub-section of the S̲h̲āktas. The Tāntras form the scriptures of the Vāma-mārgīs. The essential requisites of Tāntric worship are the five māka…

Ibāḥiyya

(5 words)

[see ibāḥa (II)].

Ibb

(310 words)

Author(s): Grohmann, A.
, formerly the capital of the ḳaḍāʾ of the same name in the sand̲j̲aḳ of Taʿizz in the Yemen; now, since 1946, a separate liwāʾ , comprising the ḳadāʾ s Ibb, ʿUdeyn, D̲h̲ī Sufāl, Ḳuʿtaba and Yerīm. Besides the pronunciation with i peculiar to the Yemen, we find also Abb (in Niebuhr: Aebb). At an earlier period the walled town, with a population estimated at 4,000, belonged to the territory of D̲h̲ū D̲j̲ibla. It is situated on the ‘upper road’ leading from ʿAdan to Ṣanʿāʾ. According to the proposals of the A. Beneyton mission of 1911 fo…

Ibdāʿ

(1,523 words)

Author(s): Gardet, L.
, absolute creation, primordial innovation.— The term itself is not Ḳurʾānic, but the Ḳurʾān calls God Badīʿ , Absolute Creator, Innovator. The two verses II, 117 and VI, 101 assert that God is “Creator ( Badīʿ) of the heavens and the earth”: we should obviously understand by this, of everything. The commentators emphasize that God is called Badīʿ by virtue of His (absolute) creation of the heavens and the earth, and K̲h̲āliḳ by virtue of His creation ( k̲h̲alḳ ) of man (“made of clay”, LV, 14). There is another distinction founded on the Ḳurʾān: the text frequently contrasts “the…

Ibdāl

(928 words)

Author(s): Ed.
(a.), “replacement”, “mutation”, technical term in Arabic grammar indicating on the one hand morphological features involving a mutation of a phonetic character, the grammatical ( naḥwī ) ibdāl as in ittaṣala <* iwtaṣala [see hamza , naḥw , taṣrīf , etc.] and, on the other hand, in its lexicographical sense, the doublets ( badal , muḍāraʿa , muʿāḳaba , naẓīr , etc.) which are very common in Arabic and which differ from each other only by a single consonant: madaḥa / madaha “to praise”, ḳaṭaʿa / ḳaṭama “to cut”, etc. This lexicographical ( lug̲h̲awī ) ibdāl has intrigued the philologists, …

Ibex

(5 words)

[see ayyil ].

Ibil

(3,368 words)

Author(s): Pellat, Ch.
(a.), collective noun indicating the two main species of the camelidae , the camelus dromedarius, or dromedary, with a single hump, and the camelus bactrianus, or camel proper, with two humps. The latter species, common in Central Asia, in western China and in northern Persia, was known to the Arabs under the name of fālid̲j̲ (pl. fawālid̲j̲ ); the crossing of two-humped stallions with Arab female camels ( ʿirāb ) produced the species called buk̲h̲t (sing, buk̲h̲tī , pl. bak̲h̲ātī ) which did not breed and which was used mainly as a beast of burden (see al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān

Iblīs

(1,881 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Gardet, L.
, proper name of the devil, probably a contraction of διάβολος. A different etymology has been suggested by D. Künstlinger, in RO, vi, 76 ff.; ¶ the Arab philologists consider that Iblīs derives from the root bls , “because Iblīs has nothing to expect ( ublisa ) from the mercy of God”. He is also known as ʿAduww Allāh (the enemy of God) and al-ʿAduww (the Enemy). Finally he is given the common name of al-s̲h̲ayṭān [ q.v.]. In the Ḳurʾān he appears at two points in the story of the beginning of the world. (1) When God had created Adam [ q.v.] from clay and had breathed into him the spirit of life…

Ibn

(943 words)

Author(s): Ed.
(A.), son. The Arab grammarians and lexicographers, who tend to trace all words to three root elements, generally attribute ibn to a root *b.n.w. ¶ and consider that it derives from a hypothetical *banaw un by loss of the 3rd sonant radical. Others state that the root is b.n.y. and that the word ibn comes from the verb banā / yabnī ʿalā “set up [a tent] on”, and, by extension, “marry”. In reality, we have an ancient Semitic biliteral, which is nevertheless triliteralized in the relative adjective banawī and in the abstract noun bunuwwa . The fern, bint , formed with the fem. indicator -t, has a ri…

Ibn ʿAbbād

(492 words)

Author(s): Nwiya, P.
, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Abī Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm al-Nafzī al-Ḥimyarī al-Rundī , the most important mystic writer of the 8th/14th century in the dominions of the Marīnids. Born in 733/1333 at Ronda, where his father was preacher in the mosque, he emigrated while still young to Morocco, whose famous madrasas attracted many students. He studied first at Tlemcen with the famous al-S̲h̲arīf al-Tilimsānī, who played a great part in the restoration of the Mālikī mad̲h̲hab in the Mag̲h̲rib; then he went to Fez, where al-Ābilī, al-Maḳḳarī, al-ʿImrānī, al-Fis…
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